All I Care About
by Pompey
Summary: AU for "Words and Deeds," minor spoilers for "Resignation."  Thanks to Cuddy, Tritter's evidence against House is reduced to only Wilson's testimony. Problem is, Wilson gets incapacitated by a mysterious illness on the day of the hearing. COMPLETE
1. Prologue

_The thing is, I've never been interested in what you have to say; all I care about is what you do. _

- Tritter, "Words and Deeds"

* * *

A thick, cardboard-encased desk planner slammed down in front of Wilson's eyes. It took him a moment to realize what it was, and looked up. House stood over him, glaring.

"Preliminary hearing's on the 19th at 10," he snapped. "Make sure you use that; I'd hate for you to forget to when you're scheduled to officially sell out."

Wilson couldn't repress a wince, but his conscience wouldn't allow him to put up any more of a protest than a feebly remonstrative, "House." It was a mistake, of course. Weakness only goaded House on, especially when he was convinced he was in the right. Actually, Wilson was half convinced House was right. But that didn't mean he needed any more guilt heaped on him. He was doing just fine in that category all by himself.

"Make sure you pick up a tie that won't induce blindness," the diagnostician continued mercilessly. "I'd have picked one myself but after buying the planner I'm all tapped out. But that's ok; I know you were reimbursed. How much is thirty pieces of silver in today's currency?"

"House, please. I feel shitty enough about this already. Besides, I'm not testifying. Tritter got everything he needed when you signed for Zebalusky's Vicodin. He doesn't need me."

"Cuddy to the rescue." House's voice hovered between impressed and disgusted. "She found some 'evidence' proving that I didn't get the dead guy's oxycodone; allegedly she set it up so that I'd get placebos instead when I signed for them. Pharmacy log 'proves' it."

"Placebos? The judge actually believes you OD'ed on placebos?" Wilson knew his voice was edging on hysterical but he couldn't get it under control. Residual waves of horror and hurt from that terrible Christmas kept washing over him. He kept seeing House bleary-eyed, unconscious in his own vomit, reeking of bile and sweat. And that damned vial next to him.

"The judge doesn't know about that," snapped House, yanking Wilson out of his flashbacks. "At least, not until you testify."

And now another wave of emotion was sweeping over Wilson, this one made of sheer desperation. "I won't testify. I'll refuse. I'll back out."

"Don't you get it?" House bent over him, looming over him. "It's too late. Tritter's got his claws into you. There's no way he'll let you go now." He straightened and turned for the door. Wilson dared to think the abuse was over until, Columbo-like, House paused for the final blow.

"We both know you'll testify. It's jail time if you don't, and everyone saw how fast you crumbled just to get back your bank account and your car and your precious, tumor-ridden patients. Why would you be any slower to protect your pretty-boy ass from Knuckles and his band of prison johns?"

Wilson winced again and dropped his gaze to the new planner in front of him. He heard House give a derisive snort – it was no fun when the victim didn't react – and the door slammed. Left alone, he brought up a hand and rubbed his eyes. Nothing he could say was going to change House's opinion of him. Wilson pushed the planner away to the corner of his desk, took a sip from his water bottle, and wondered how the hell he could possibly put things right.

* * *

The 19 th, 10:11 a.m.

Tritter paced the courtroom's hallway, knuckled turning white around his cell. "What's taking so long? I want James Wilson in this courtroom immediately or else I want him in cuffs."

"I'm with hotel security right now," came the placating response from the prosecution's lackey. "OK, the door's unlocked. Dr. James Wilson? I'm with – oh my God. Sorry, I have to call you back."

"What? No!" Tritter stopped his pacing. "What the hell's going on?"

"I'm sorry but I have to call 911. This is an emergency."

Abruptly the line went dead in Tritter's ear. He dialed back but only got dumped into voice mail for his trouble. Angrily he snapped the phone shut. "That man better be dead or dying," he muttered to no one in particular.

Meanwhile, Wilson continued to twitch and jerk in a puddle of vomit, unresponsive, as the EMS rushed into the room.


	2. Chapter 2

For Cuddy, it was bad enough when the call came from the ER that Wilson had admitted. Worse still was when she learned what he had been admitted for. But the last straw came when she actually saw him – his ankles in shackles, his dominant left hand cuffed to the bed and a stern police officer watching his every move. And there was Tritter, standing in the hallway with a faint, self-satisfied smile. Every inch a hospital administrator, Cuddy marched in.

"Why is the head of my oncology department in restraints and under guard?" She refrained, through long years of carefully honed practice, from adding an adolescent, "are you kidding me?"

"He was subpoena'ed and failed to show," Tritter replied patiently, as though explaining to a child. "He's under arrest and will be going to jail as soon as he's gotten a medial release."

"Of course he failed to show; he was having a seizure!"

"He had what the emergency responders, who are not doctors, thought was a seizure."

Cuddy folded her arms and took a step closer. "Are you saying he induced vomiting and faked a seizure?"

Tritter folded his own arms and met her angry glare with perfect outward calm. "Shortly after Christmas he told me he wouldn't testify. I told him he had no choice unless he wanted jail time. Now he's got a supposed medical condition that prevents him from testifying, and you wonder why I'm not buying it?"

"The training emergency responders get is the same training nurses get, and seizures aren't as easy to fake as you might think," she shot back, fudging the truth just a bit. "Wilson wasn't pretending."

"All right," agreed Tritter suddenly and suspiciously amiably. "Fair enough. I'm not a doctor; you are. If you say seizures are hard to fake convincingly, then I accept your professional opinion. But here's my professional opinion, Dr. Cuddy: James Wilson was desperate not to testify against his friend, and in my experience desperate men do desperate things. He's a doctor. I'm sure he's familiar with substances that can seizures. And if he deliberately caused himself harm to avoid testifying, that's an obstruction of justice . . . and that's an offense he will be jailed for."

It took Cuddy a moment to make her voice steady. "Provided, of course, that your theory is correct. If you're wrong, then there is a serious medical condition that must be treated, and he cannot be punished for that."

Tritter acknowledged this with a slight incline of his head and another faint smile. "Of course," he said politely with a tone that made it clear he didn't believe one word of it. "Then I'll let you get right to work finding your . . . _diagnosis_." Still smiling, Tritter turned away. Cuddy dropped her arms and sighed. At this point she'd be willing to turn down another ten million if it meant the compensation would be seeing that smile get wiped off the cold bastard's face.

"Oh, and Dr. Cuddy?" He had turned back. Now the smile was gone but in its place was a dangerous sort of seriousness. "I'll be subpoena'ing his medical records for all the treatment he receives here, from today going forward. If I suspect you're holding Dr. Wilson longer than medically necessary or withholding pertinent information, I'll have to have you arrested for obstruction of justice too."

* * *

The manila folder slid across the table. Three sets of eyes watched it slow to a stop before turning into three identical expressions of incredulousness.

"Over a quarter of seizures have no discernible cause," Foreman protested.

"Which means three-quarters of seizures have discernible causes," retorted House. "Suppose we start there before we throw up our hands in defeat. Unless you've got a problem helping Wilson."

"Wilson?" Cameron reached for the file.

"Yeah, karma's a bitch. Or else he's making a bid for sympathy. Or to get out of testifying. Whichever. Your job to figure out which."

"Tritter could be right. He could be faking," pointed out Foreman.

House gave his cane an extra vicious twirl. "Except that Tritter is an idiot, so the odds of his being right are prodigiously low."

Chase shook his head. "Everybody lies. We can't assume that he wasn't faking it just because he's Wilson."

"But that fact that he _is_ Wilson is important," Cameron protested. "Yes, everybody lies, but we know him. We know what he would lie about. You can't seriously think he'd fake a seizure."

"No, of course not," retorted House. "Betrayal is more his speed." But the bitter tone he used rung hollow.

"_Martyrdom_ is more his speed," interjected Chase, and looked surprised when everyone stared at him. "What? House says it all the time. If there's a grenade to throw himself over, he will, especially if he thinks it will help House. That means that Wilson might have done something to cause a seizure to get out of testifying."

"Except," House broke in, "that once again, if that's the case then Tritter is right and Tritter is an idiot et cetera, et cetera. And if he's not right, which he is not, then there is something seriously wrong with Wilson and we're wasting precious time by not figuring out what that something is. Single episode seizure and vomiting with ongoing abdominal pain and malaise in a late-thirties white male – go!"

"Epilepsy," Foreman offered immediately.

"Clean history, and doesn't explain the abdominal pain," blocked Chase. "Head trauma causes concussion, concussion leads to nausea, vomiting, and seizures."

"Trauma would've shown up on the cranial x-rays or CT," Foreman retorted. "What about an infection? Vasculitis could start in the brain and spread to the GI tract or vice versa."

"White blood cell count is normal, except for some neutropenia, and his temp's normal," Cameron mused. "Which rules out febrile seizures."

"Iron's a little low too but nowhere near low enough to induce a seizure," Chase observed, taking the file from her. "All other labs are normal."

Cameron suddenly straightened. "Sleep deprivation. Stress – " she paused, as though wanting to elaborate but changed her mind "- causes psychosomatic stomach pains and insomnia , ongoing sleep deprivation causes the seizure, and the seizure causes vomiting. Stress and insomnia wouldn't show up on the tests and it fits everything."

House rocked his cane back and forth, considering. "Figures Wilson would land himself in the hospital over something one green moth pill could cure. Get him started on – "

A chorus of electronic beeps interrupted him. "ER," House reported, the first to get to his beeper. "Another bout of vomiting. This time there's blood. Does your insomnia explain that?"

"Repeated vomiting can cause esophageal bleeding," Cameron protested.

"Alcohol or drug withdrawal can cause seizures and vomiting too," said Foreman softly. House looked at him sharply but the younger man only shrugged unapologetically. "Everybody lies, House. You always say so yourself."

House closed his eyes for the briefest moment. When he opened them again, any and all emotion was well hidden. "He's already on anti-convulsants and anti-emetics. Get him on a sedative and order a GI series. And search his office and hotel room." He heaved himself out of his chair and limped to the door.

"Where are you going?" Chase called after him.

"Gonna go see a man about a shovel. I anticipate encountering a load of bull."

* * *

"You're an idiot."

Wilson wearily looked up from the newspaper an indulgent nurse had brought him. Reading was starting to strain his eyes anyway. "And why am I an idiot this time?"

"That's what I'd like to know." House tapped the guard with his cane until the chair at Wilson's bedside was finally relinquished. "What did you do?"

Wilson sighed. "I woke up, took a shower, brushed my teeth – "

"That's not what I mean." Blue eyes stared at him as if trying to search his soul. "_What did you do_?"

Brown eyes met House's stare unflinchingly. "You think I caused this."

"Did you?"

"No."

House held his gaze; Wilson continued to meet it. Finally House looked away and nodded. "Ok. We'll figure it out."

"I know you will," the oncologist replied simply. Then his eyes widened before snapping shut. "House?"

"Yeah?" Peripherally, he noted Wilson's blood pressure had risen somewhat.

"Bedpan."

"Aww, come on," House protested even as the guard's eyes doubled in size and he went on a frantic search for the requested item. "I know we're friends and all but I draw the line at taking dumps in front of each other."

Wilson didn't reply. He was too busy snatching the bedpan from the guard with his non-dominant and heaving into it.

"That's not good, is it?" asked the guard hesitantly, looking at the streaks of red coating the sides of the bedpan.


	3. Chapter 3

"Good news," Cameron offered gently.

Wilson blinked at her. It was a little disconcerting to have a doctor want to discuss the results of the GI series when he was still groggy and slightly nauseous from the anesthesia. Doubly so when not that long ago the same doctor had taken House's side and reamed him out for his decision, and now she was practically mothering him. Also, his head hurt, his stomach hurt, and his throat hurt. But Cameron seemed to be waiting for a response. "Mmmph?"

"We're still waiting for the path on the biopsy but so far all the scopes look ok. Some inflammation but that's to be expected."

"Mmmph," replied Wilson, more out of instinct than of actual acknowledgement. His eyes drifted shut. For a while there was a blessed silence.

"You haven't been sleeping lately, have you?" murmured Cameron, at her empathetic best.

Wilson felt his face contort in an effort not to scowl. "Not very well," he mumbled.

He could hear the satisfaction in her voice. "I thought so."

This time the annoyance was enough to make him crack his eyes open. "You can stop with the guilt trip, you know. I can't take it back, much as I'd like to."

"What?" Cameron looked honestly confused. "I wasn't – you thought – no, what I meant was, I came up with diagnosis of seizures secondary to severe sleep deprivation and insomnia. And it looks like I was right."

It took him a moment to work through the alliterative mass of words. "I don't have extreme insomnia."

"But – "

"I haven't been sleep _well_," clarified Wilson, "but I have been sleeping. I'm sorry," he added as Cameron's face fell. And he was. He knew how frustrating it was for the Diagnostics team to misdiagnose. Also, the cure for insomnia-induced seizures was boringly simple.

"It's ok." She smiled unconvincingly. "I'm still going to go ahead and put you on a sedative. A little extra sleep won't hurt you, even if it's not insomnia."

_Unless he threw up in his sleep and aspirated it_, Wilson chose not to say. "Have Chase and Foreman gone through my office yet?"

Cameron stared at him. "How did you – " she gasped before she remembered who this particular patient was. "I don't know." Her eyebrows lifted. "Why? Are they going to find anything?"

Wilson smiled faintly and shook his head. "My ipod's in my gym bag in the bottom right hand drawer of my desk. Think they could grab it for me?"

* * *

Tritter raised his eyebrows. "A gastrointestinal scope? Granted I'm not a doctor but I really don't see how – " he checked the report again – " 'chronic gastritis with moderate to severe inflammation' relates to seizures."

"The stomach issues are likely from repeated vomiting, which is a common effect of seizures," Cuddy replied, keeping her temper under control but only just. "As for what's causing the seizures, we're still running some tests. At any rate, bloody emesis is a concern and standard procedure is to observe for twenty-four hours as a precaution."

"Isn't that convenient."

"If you doubt my word then check with any other hospital. I guarantee they'll tell you the same thing."

Tritter neatly folded up the surgical report and tucked it into his pocket. "Don't worry. I will."

* * *

"Sorry we couldn't find your ipod," Chase apologized, dropping the gym bag at Wilson's feet. "We checked every pocket, but maybe we just missed it."

Wilson shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I probably left it in my car. Thanks for checking, though."

"Speaking of your car," began Foreman.

"Key card's in my wallet; car keys are, or were, in my coat pocket," Wilson said promptly. "If you need me to talk to hotel security to ok you, just call."

Foreman raised an eyebrow, considered, and nodded. "Thanks."

"What was that all about?" demanded the guard once the ducklings had left.

Wilson picked up his gym bag and started rummaging. "They're going through my hotel room looking for something that could have caused the seizures and vomiting," he answered absently. "Damn. It really isn't in here."

"Shouldn't they leave that to the police?"

"Don't the police need a search warrant, and probable cause or evidentiary support to get the search warrant? Foreman and Chase just need my permission, which I gave," Wilson countered. He sighed, pulled out a mostly full water bottle, and dropped the bag on the floor. "Put on what you want."

"I'm supposed to watch you, not the TV," the guard said almost primly.

Wilson took a sip of his newly acquired water, recapped the bottle, and shrugged. "Put it on Channel 3 then. _General Hospital_ is the best sleep aid you can get without a prescription."

* * *

Within the hour, Wilson was asleep, the heart monitor beeping steadily and the EEG indicating the beginnings of REM sleep. On one side of the bed sat Tritter's guard. On the other side, House was slumped back in one of the butt-numbing guest chairs, watching. His shoulder was hard and tense when Cuddy tapped it. "We have to talk."

"So talk."

Cuddy chose her words carefully. "We need to discuss treatment that falls under the category of patient confidentiality, and we can't do that in front of someone who has not been cleared to have access to a patient's PHI."

"So get him cleared. Tritter is." House's lip curled involuntarily at the thought.

"House." Cuddy's tone brooked no argument. Then she smiled sweetly at the guard. "Excuse us, we'll be right outside the door."

"You just want to make a cripple walk," House grouched, but he followed her out of the room.

"Please tell me you've got a lead on Wilson's condition."

He didn't bother to look at her directly. "Why, is it urgently needed?"

"Tritter wants a diagnosis in twenty-four hours or Wilson's going to jail."

"Is that problem?"

"House!"

"Yeah, you're right. He's way too pretty for jail. They'd eat him alive."

"He's your best friend. I know you feel betrayed but right now he needs your help . . . especially since this legal mess is _your _doing. _You _used the rectal thermometer on Tritter, _you _insulted him instead of apologizing, _you _flaunted your drug use in his face and you _refused _to accept a deal -"

"I accepted the deal!"

But Cuddy knew too many details about that to let him off. "Not until after you stole a dead guy's pills."

"Attempted to," House smirked, recalling the legalistic tap-dance his boss had performed for his benefit.

"Tritter has been opening doors for you every step of the way," Cuddy replied firmly, resisting the bait, "and you keep slamming them shut. I did what I could to help you but no more. There are no more openings to give, House. This is one time you're not going to be able to wriggle out of accepting the responsibility for your actions."

House gazed over her shoulder at some point in distance. "You want me to go to jail?" he asked quietly.

She sighed and folded her arms. "No. But if it's a choice between you or Wilson going to jail, I choose you."

"Well, gosh, now I feel all special."

"Stop trying to pick a fight. It's not going to help Wilson."

House met her eyes. "Picking fights is helping Wilson just as much as my sitting in there doing nothing, waiting for useless test results that tell me even more of nothing. Unless Chase and Foreman find anything in his hotel room, we've got no working diagnosis. Until we get a diagnosis we don't know how to treat him, thus putting him at increased risk of further harm." House looked at his sneakers and then back at his boss. "If I tell you I don't know how to help him, or even if I can, can I still pick a fight?"

Cuddy sighed. "House – "

Suddenly Tritter's guard was at the window. "Uh, doctors? One of the machines is making strange noises."

House pushed past him, limping at a rate that would have his ruined thigh screaming if he kept it up longer than a minute. "Damn! Cuddy, get in here!"

At first, it looked like Wilson was merely twitching a bit in his sleep. Then she saw the EEG and moved to hover near his head in case he started flailing and needed restraining. "Another seizure? I thought they had him on anti-convulsants."

"They do," House answered grimly. "They're not working. Whatever's the underlying cause is overpowering the meds. Never thought I'd say this but . . . Wilson, you'd better be hiding something good."

* * *

"This . . . is weird."

Foreman peered around the bathroom door to look at Chase and shrugged. "People deal with divorce differently. Someone people get into rebound relationships, some people go on drinking sprees, and Wilson moved into a hotel rather than stay with House or find a new apartment. I'm sure it's just temporary."

"Huh?" For a moment both men exchanged similar looks of confusion. Then Chase clarified. "I meant it's weird that we're going through Dr. Wilson's stuff. It's just. . . it's an invasion of his privacy."

"It's the same sort of thing we'd be doing with any other patient."

"But he's not just any other patient."

"He is as far as we're concerned. And he is until we find a diagnosis."

"Provided we ever find a diagnosis," Chase muttered and went back to rummaging through a pile of folded socks. Something small and hard rattled beneath his hands. It took him only a moment to unearth it.

"Crap. Foreman! Found something!"


	4. Chapter 4

House twirled the orange plastic tube between his fingers. Inside, the pills inside rattled and clicked. On the outside was a label that had the words "Wilson, James. E." and "Welbutrin 150 mg" on it. The steady, unceasing tumbling was the only outward sign of the diagnostician's disgruntled mood as Foreman spoke. "It all fits, House. Each pill contains 150 milligrams of buproprion. If he takes three a day, he's at the level where the risk of seizures begins."

"It can take up to two months for antidepressents to build up in the body and become effective. There's no way Wilson could accidentally take too many pills for that long."

Chase and Foreman exchanged meaningful glances. "No," Foreman agreed slowly. "There's no way he could _accidentally _take that many for that long."

"So you think that Tritter's right." House's tone hit freezing temperatures and continued to plummet. "You think Wilson's stupid enough to hurt himself and possibly his career just to get out of testifying . . . _and _that he's stupid enough to leave his evidence lying around."

"You're letting yourself get blindsided because you don't want Tritter to be right," retorted Foreman. "You just have to prove him wrong, no matter the cost. Even if the cost if Wilson' health because we didn't treat him for the right thing in time."

"In all fairness," interjected Chase, hands up in a placating gesture, "the scrip we found was filled two days ago. That means there should still be twenty-eight pills in the bottle, which there are. The simplest way of ruling out buproprion overdose is to test his blood levels, and call the prescribing provider to find out how long he's been taking the drug."

"Fine. Test. Call." House slammed down the bottle and quasi marched down the hall. "And let me know when you find out I'm right," he added without turning around.

* * *

"All right. Thanks." Foreman hung up and met his coworkers. "This is the first scrip his therapist's written for him for buproprion. Wilson was reluctant to start meds until last week, when he called in and said he'd changed his mind."

"That's . . . kinda suspicious. But it's good news for us then," said Chase. "It means House was wrong."

"House was right," Cameron contradicted, entering the room. She handed over the papers in her hands. "Buproprion levels are barely detectable. It's not a Welbutrin overdose."

Foreman half rolled his eyes. "That still doesn't mean his condition wasn't self-inflicted. What else causes seizures and vomiting, neutropenia and anemia, that's not an infection?"

Chase and Cameron looked at each other, silently urging each other to say what none of them wanted to even consider.

Finally Foreman sighed and stepped up. "Poison."

* * *

"Pass me my gym bag?"

"Gym bag? You've never been work out fiend," mocked House, but obligingly looped his cane through the handles and slid it over to Wilson.

"People change," came the casual reply but Wilson seemed a little too preoccupied with unzipping and rummaging through his bag to be sincere.

"No," House all but snarled, "they don't. A recovered alcoholic is just an alcoholic that doesn't drink. People may adopt different behaviors that temporarily benefit them but they don't _change_."

"Fine, then I adopted a different behavior to temporarily benefit from it," Wilson snapped back, still concentrating on finding something in the bag that continued to elude him. It was a clear signal to back off but House had never been one to let signals deter him.

"Trying to fight the middle-aged spread? Or just wanted to get those joy-juices flowing?" No reaction. "Exercise releases endorphins. Endorphins cause an elevated mood," House added, seemingly for the guard's benefit but his eyes never left Wilson.

"Here." A blueberry and oat granola bar suddenly plopped into House's lap. "Keep your mouth busy with something else."

The diagnostician picked it up and held it at arm's length. "You keep granola bars next to your jock strap? _Ewww_. "

"The box was unopened until now and I washed the clothes before I loaded them in. If you don't want it, give it back. I slept through lunch and I'm hungry." Wilson held out his hand.

In response, House tore open the cellophane and bit into the bar. Wilson chose a strawberry bar for himself, and, after hesitating for just a moment, surprised the police guard by tossing him an apple one.

House looked indignant, or would have if his cheeks hadn't been full of granola. "Hey, how come Rent-a-Cop gets one?"

"Ben missed lunch too and I try to be a nice person."

"_Ben_? You're on a first name basis with your guard after five hours? Good God, Wilson, is this how you plan to survive in prison? Just for that I'm taking your granola." And just like that, the strawberry bar was in House's hands, getting viciously ripped open.

"Hey!" Wilson glared but unfortunately his glares had never had any effect on his friend. Now was no exception.

"You should be thanking me," House told him around bites of pilfered bar. "In case you forgot, you were ralphing blood this morning. The last thing you need is high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil."

Wilson knew it was hard to pout and maintain a righteous tone but gave it his best shot regardless. "Neither of those ingredients is in the granola. I checked before I bought them."

House paused mid-bite, decided Wilson wasn't more than an expressive eye roll, and plucked the water bottle from the gym bag. "Here. Quit your whining by staying hydrated. And what's your gym bag doing here anyway?"

Wilson took a couple chugs of water, deliberating ignoring him for good ten seconds. "I thought my ipod was in it so I asked Chase and Foreman to grab it for me when they searched my office." He let the disapproval seep into his voice and House's face flickered guiltily for an impressive whole half a second. "When they couldn't find it they just brought the whole bag down, thinking they overlooked it. Guess it's in my car or somewhere. Quit complaining. If they hadn't brought it you wouldn't have any granola at all. Hey, guys."

House turned to see his entire team enter the room. All three wore identical expressions of apprehension. Cameron had a kit in her hands.

"Give it to us straight, docs," House suggested. "We can take it. What are you testing for that you clearly don't want to tell me about?"

Foreman took one last look at his coworkers. Their looks clearly said it was up to the man who came up with the idea to explain the idea. "Tox screen."

"I thought you already ran one," said Wilson, brow furrowing.

"For drugs and alcohol, yeah. This one is for heavy metals and other poisons."

Immediately House was on his feet. "No."

"You were right about the bupropion, House, he's clean. We've ruled out everything else."

"And we ruled out toxins in our first diagnostic."

"No, _you_ ruled it out on the basis of nothing but your own stubbornness."

"Dr. House," Ben the police guard interrupted softly, "is there some reason you don't want Dr. Wilson to be tested for toxins?"

"Back off, Kojak," House snapped. "Unless you've got a medical degree, your opinion is irrelevant here."

To his credit, Ben didn't so much as blink an eye at the insults. "Actually, Dr. House, my opinion is very relevant here. If Dr. Wilson is being poisoned, that's attempted murder. And that's my jurisdiction. So I repeat: is there some reason you don't want Dr. Wilson to be tested for toxins?"

House ignored him, fixing Wilson with a laser-like stare. Wilson returned it, openly, steadily. The silence stretched longer and longer. The fellows knew better than to interfere and even Ben sensed this was something big was brewing.

"It's ok," Wilson said softly. "Let them run the tests."

House's eyes narrowed dangerously. Suddenly he whipped around and stormed out, thunderclouds all but hovering over his head. The sliding door obligingly slammed behind him. Only once he was gone did the fellows move, and Ben quietly excuse himself to make a phone call.

* * *

"House, what were you thinking?"

Normally when Cuddy spoke with that kind of exasperation it was accompanied by arms folded under her chest, granting a fantastic view of the twins, but not even that could stop House from furiously bouncing the giant ball against the wall of his office.

"Tritter was right. He's hurting himself to get out testifying."

With surprising agility, Cuddy snatched the ball in midair as it rebounded. "How can you say that? It's a simple tox screen. You have no way of knowing - "

"He's depressed. He's taking Welbutrin."

"Welbutrin is used to treat other things besides depression."

"He's never been a smoker and he doesn't have chronic fatigue syndrome. What he does have is psychiatrist and a psycho cop who's been riding his ass for weeks. What he also has is preliminary hearing where he is supposed to testify against his best friend, and one last thing that he has is a seriously twisted protective streak when it comes to me. What could be more efficient than offing himself at the time it would benefit me the most?"

Cuddy sighed and put the ball down. The heavy bitterness in his tone could not disguise the underlying bleakness. "House. If Wilson is suicidal, then he needs help. If he's poisoning himself, preventing a tox screen won't help him. It'll only prevent him from getting the treatment he needs, and dump suspicion on you."

House looked at her sharply. "Me?"

"Nobody but you benefits from him being incapacitated," she said gently. "If you want to prevent a tox screen on Wilson, it looks like you're trying to cover up something and Tritter's already got in for you. He'd be delighted to add attempted murder to the list of charges."

"And if they run the tox screen and it's positive, Wilson gets treated to a detour to the psych ward before heading straight to jail."

Cuddy wasn't quite sure what to say that she hadn't already been said. "And you think _Wilson_'s got a twisted protective streak. You two are quite the pair."

House fidgeted with his cane. "I suppose," he said, painfully slowly, "that trying to help someone by preventing potentially necessary testing is no better than trying to help someone by forcing treatment on them."

Three seconds later, Lisa Cuddy found herself standing agape in House's office, alone, while House himself limped back down the hall.

* * *

The ducklings had scurried off to run the tests; Tritter's minion was still in attendance. Wilson wore the particular look of concern he adopted when House did things that made those around him question his sanity.

"House?"

"Sorry. Had to cast off your personality that I so suddenly adopted. So. Let's be honest, keep it among just us guys. Why didn't you tell me you're depressed?"

This elicited a gusty sigh and his hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Suddenly House seized his wrist and pulled it to his eyes.

"House! What the hell?"

"Dr. House, what are you – "

"Everyone shut up! You, Not-So-Gentle Ben, go track down the nearest nurse. Tell them Dr. Wilson needs to get started on chelation therapy, stat."

Wilson stared at him. "There's no way the tox screen's come back yet. How do you know – "

"Look at your fingernails." House swung Wilson's hand around until it was about three inches in front of the oncologist's eyes. The nails were ridged with streaks of white in them. "Leukonychia. You've got arsenic poisoning."


	5. Chapter 5

"Stop the chellation therapy," Tritter ordered.

Cuddy considered her options for half a second, decided she had been the responsible hospital administrator long enough, and went with the most self-satisfying response. "No. That treatment is saving the life of a patient, who happens to be the head of my oncology department in addition to my friend, and I will not put his life at risk just because some cop with a vendetta and no medical degree wants me to."

Tritter only smiled tolerantly. "Are you finished? Because I'm about to say something that will change your mind."

"I sincerely doubt it but go right ahead and try."

"You've confirmed that Dr. Wilson has arsenic poisoning but you don't know why or how. Foul play can't be ruled out, and that makes this a police jurisdiction. For his safety, we need him transferred to another hospital for his treatment."

" 'For his safety'?" scoffed Cuddy. "What, you think someone in this hospital has been poisoning him?"

His eyebrow twitched upward. "Why so incredulous?"

Cuddy found she could be nothing but. "You seriously think someone in this hospital wants Wilson dead?"

"Dead or incapacitated. Oh, don't look so shocked. You're an intelligent woman; I'm sure you can figure out whose best interest it's in to get Dr. Wilson out of the way, even temporarily."

There was no way she could intimidate the detective by mere presence, she knew, but nevertheless Cuddy stepped towards, hands on her hips, glaring daggers. "If you mean to accuse someone, then do it. Slander is a crime too, you know."

Tritter smiled and shook his head slightly in admiration. "We're going to have to bring Dr. House in for questioning. He may not have been slipping Dr. Wilson arsenic but perhaps he knows who was."

"Then question House but leave Wilson here and set up a security camera on him. That's the protocol for Munchausen by proxy suspects and what you're suggesting is pretty much the same MO."

"Ordinarily we would but there are extenuating circumstances," Tritter replied. "A security camera set up to observe Dr. Wilson wouldn't catch it if, say, someone in this hospital were to switch his pills out in the hallway. Or if someone who could pull certain strings glitched up the camera to mysteriously stop recording for thirty seconds or so."

He gave Cuddy a moment or so to catch up. Then, just when her jaw dropped, he added, "After all, it wouldn't look good for your or Princeton-Plainsboro if Dr. House goes to jail. He's the reason you have a Department of Diagnostics in the first place, the man you're constantly defending. Hardly an expendable commodity. So if you don't mind, Dr. Cuddy, when we're done questioning House we'll have some questions for you too. And we'll be transferring Dr. Wilson to a different hospital."

* * *

"This is ridiculous!" Wilson exclaimed. Had he been standing, his hands would have firmly planted on his hips. Since he was still in bed, he had to settle for folding his arms over his chest. He knew doing so made him look petulant but it was the best he could do at the time.

"This is how it has to be, unless there's something you'd like to tell us," shrugged Tritter.

"The only thing I'd like to tell you is to check yourself into the nearest mental health facility for your obvious paranoid delusions."

The detective smiled tolerantly. "We'll need any personal items you've come into contact with that are not in your office, your car, or your hotel room."

Wilson scowled for a few more seconds just to make his point, then jerked his head towards the floor. "Just the gym bag."

"Which is clean," put in Ben.

"Really?" Tritter asked. "You've had it tested already?"

"I was here when two of House's fellows brought it in per Dr. Wilson's request. The clothes were washed and the box of granola bars was opened in my presence. I even ate one myself. Dr. House had two."

"Did Dr. Wilson eat any?"

"Um . . . " Ben screwed up his face. "No. Dr. House took it away, said that he shouldn't be eating granola after throwing up blood."

Tritter favored him with dark look. "Then yourself tested for arsenic and have Dr. House tested also. Meanwhile, Bradstreet, grab the bag and anything that was inside it, and meet me in Dr. Cuddy's office. We've got ourselves a new prime suspect."

As soon as Tritter was out of earshot, Ben smiled apologetically and picked up the bag. "I believe you, you know."

Wilson sighed and waved it off. "Don't worry about it. What I want to know is, what's Tritter's problem anyway? And I don't just mean with House or with me, I mean _him, his _problem."

"He's got tenacity, an intolerance for BS, honed instincts, a streak of good luck, and a long memory," Ben answered. "All are things cops need but he's got them in the wrong proportions."

"So you're saying he's a hard ass."

"But you didn't hear that from me."

"Gotcha. Oh, hey." Wilson held out his water bottle, which had been left on the rolling table. "This was in my gym bag too."

Ben looked at it, hesitated, and finally took it. Then he opened it, took a few health gulps and handed it back. "There. It's tested. What Tritter doesn't know won't hurt him or anyone else," he added with a wink.

* * *

Wilson had initial doubts about his new attending provided by Princeton General – a short, somewhat overweight woman not long out of residency with a riot of orangey-red corkscrews and a generous sprinkling of orangey-brown freckles named Rebecca Beaudoin. His doubts were overthrown within fifteen minutes, when she frostily informed Tritter he had no business being in her patient's room if he was no longer under suspicion.

"I think I love you," Wilson told her spontaneously.

Dr. Beaudoin only smiled tolerantly. "I'll be sure to let my husband know that. OK, the I.V.'s all set, and here's your bupropion."

Wilson stared in the surprise at the offered pills in the little plastic container and cup of water. "How'd you know I was taking that?"

"It's in your medical chart from Princeton-Plainsboro," she said simply. "It also says you haven't had a dose yet today."

"Not yet I haven't," agreed Wilson, accepting the pills with his free hand.

Dr. Beaudoin left the water within reach, understanding. "I'll be back within the hour to get Tritter's tox screen." Her tone left little to the imagination as to her opinion of the detective and his demands.

Wilson smiled to himself but as he tossed back the pills, the smile vanished. Tritter was scowling in the doorway, carrying a familiar gym bag. Deliberately Wilson opened the water bottle Ben had given back to him and drank.

"Congratulations," Tritter began. "Everything tested clean."

"And you wanted to return it personally. Thanks."

"I also wanted to tell you that Dr. House's tox screen was clear of poisons but Sargeant Bradstreet's tox screen showed mildly elevated levels of arsenic."

Tritter dropped the gym bag into the nearest chair and stared down at the patient. "You really need to stop this, Dr. Wilson. Maybe you think you're expendable compared to Dr. House. Obviously whoever's been poisoning thinks you are. But now one of my men's gotten a dose of arsenic meant for you and that makes me angry. Who are you protecting? Is it Cuddy?"

"I'm not protecting anyone!" Wilson shouted. "Good God, did it ever occur to you – " He broke off, brow furrowing. He could feel his pulse starting to beat above his eyes and his head felt light. "Something's wrong."

Tritter snorted. "How stupid do you think I am?"

Wilson shook his head. "No – please – get - " His gaze unfocused and he seemed to tense up.

The machines he was hooked to started beeping insistently. Dr. Beaudoin sprinted in, pushing the detective aside. "What the hell did you do to him?"

For once, Tritter looked uncertain. "Nothing. We only spoke."

"Well, he's seizing," she announced, checking Wilson's eyes.

"Are you sure he's not faking? He's not shaking or flailing."

Dr. Beaudoin skewered him with a deathly glare. "You're think of grand mal seizures, and they're rare. This is a petie mal, and yes, it's real. Look at his vitals if you don't believe me."

Tritter stood off to the side, watching, until it was over. Dr. Beaudoin checked Wilson one last time, making sure the I.V. was still functioning, before storming over to the cop.

"He seized while on chellation therapy," she snarled. "The only way he could have had ongoing arsenic poisoning that overcame the therapy was if he was just dosed. _You_ were the last person in the room before he seized, Detective, and I know you were in Princeton-Plainsboro with him. Who's your supervisor? I'd like to suggest a restraining order be put out against you to protect Dr. Wilson."


	6. Chapter 6

"Dr. Wilson, do you recall any changes made to your water system in the past three months, either at home or at work?"

The new cop sent in to question Wilson was less personable than Ben, which was fine with Wilson. Headaches and nausea were common side-effects of chellation therapy but that wasn't any consolation when he was experiencing them. "Ummm . . . I had a clog in my hotel sink back in October but their maintenance crew took care of it."

"Did you notice any changes to your water supply after that?"

"The water was rust-colored for a day or so but then it cleared up."

"Do you drink the water that comes from your sink?"

"I guess so. I mean, I use it brush my teeth and sometimes I'll fill up my water bottle or use the room's coffee maker. Did . . . did you guys find something in the water?"

New Guy merely finished writing down Wilson's answer. "How often do you drink the water from your sink?"

"I don't know. Once or twice a day, maybe more if I'm going to gym and my water bottle's empty. Is there arsenic in the hotel's water?"

Finally New Guy cracked. "We found arsenic levels above the accepted 0.010 milligrams per litre, yes."

"Oh my God." Wilson leaned back into his pillow.

"Contaminated water is the most common vector for arsenic poisoning," New Guy assured him. "It's more common in undeveloped areas but no unheard in urban settings."

"No, I mean – Oh my God. I've been poisoning myself. With this." And Wilson handed over the water bottle he had brought with him from Princeton-Plainsboro, the one he had taken out of the gym bag. "I filled it from the sink the day before my first seizure and brought it to work in my gym bag, but I didn't work out that day and then the next day – um. Well. You know the rest."

New Guy frowned and took the bottle. "Why wasn't this examined before?"

"The officer guarding me, Ben Bradstreet, said it didn't need to be tested. He drank from it, said that was enough of a test for him. . . . he's going to be in a lot of trouble, isn't he?"

"Oh, yeah," New Guy said emphatically.

* * *

"Will you state your name and position?" House's attorney asked.

"Rebecca Beaudoin, M.D. I'm Dr. Wilson's attending physician at Princeton General."

"What was Dr. Wilson treated for?"

"Arsenic poisoning."

"And could you explain to us the extent of the poisoning?"

"The minimal lethal dose of arsenic in adults is roughly 70 to 200 milligrams a day, depending on body weight. The rule of thumb is 1 milligram for every kilogram of weight. By this rule of thumb, the lethal dose of arsenic for Dr. Wilson would be about 80-85 mg a day. His initial blood arsenic levels indicated he has been receiving doses of about 50 milligrams of arsenic a day, assuming a start date of October 29, as confirmed by hotel maintenance as the day they roto-rooted a clog out of his room's sink."

House smiled faintly in appreciation, aware of Tritter glowering in the corner of the room. The judge's eyebrows rose but the defense smiled. "And can you explain what a roto-rooter has to do with arsenic?"

"Arsenic occurs naturally in some water tables. The federally approved maximum limit of arsenic in drinking water is 0.010 milligrams per litre. According to the police report, the arsenic levels from Dr. Wilson's sink were exponentially higher, but the arsenic levels from the tub were within normal limits. The pipes in Dr. Wilson's hotel room sink were old with rusty iron joints. Arsenic bonds readily with iron. Our working theory is that when the roto-rooter dislodged the clog, it also released into the water supply iron particles to which naturally-occurring arsenic had been bonded. Because arsenic is also water soluable, it was then able to seep into the water supply, tainting it and causing abnormally high levels of poison."

House stopped smiling. It was a decent theory, fit all the facts. So why wasn't he happy with it? His attorney certainly seemed to be.

"In your professional opinion," the defense continued, "would you consider Dr. Wilson's testimony to be reliable?"

"At this point in time . . . no."

"Why?"

"One of the effects of arsenic is neurologic disturbances, which can include changes in or loss of memory, seizures and hallucinations. Dr. Wilson experienced no fewer than three seizures; it wouldn't be surprising if he had other neurologic effects."

"Thank you." The defence was practically beaming as he turned to the judge. "In light of this testimony, Your Honor, the Defence moves to dismiss this case."

The prosecution was already shouting out objections when the judge raised a hand. "In a moment. What is Dr. Wilson's opinion of the validity of his testimony? Does he have any concerns?"

Wilson stood up.

House's trained eye took the slow, careful way his friend stood; the pale skin; the dark shadows under his eyes; and how his hands shook slightly. Chellation therapy was still causing him headaches and nausea, obviously, and yet he wondered how much of Wilson's appearance was carefully planned.

"I am no longer confident that my testimony is reliable," Wilson announced, outwardly calm. "There is a chance that my memory was affected by the arsenic and I simply don't recall all the prescriptions I wrote for Dr. House, or that I wrote the same prescription multiple times because I didn't remember writing them the first or second time." He took a deep breath. "It is also possible I may have hallucinated the events of Christmas Day of last year. Because of this, I am asking that the court dismiss me as a witness for fear of committing a miscarriage of justice."

House winced in sympathy and wondered if Wilson understood what this admission might mean for his career. His question was soon answered.

"I am aware that due to the potential for mental impairment, my license may be temporarily suspended until such a time as I can prove my competency," continued Wilson steadily. "But I cannot argue with any measure that is in the best interests of my patients."

The judge nodded. "Thank you, Dr. Wilson. Dr. House, please stand."

House tried to catch Wilson's eye as he obeyed but the oncologist was apparently oblivious to anything but the judge.

"Rules and laws apply to everyone," she said sternly. "You are not as special as you think. But Detective Tritter chose to make you so. Detective, I don't know exactly what's going on here, but I am sure that this man is not flooding the street with cocaine. I'm also certain that knowing Dr House, he must have done something to set you off but you're going to have to live with it. Given the lack of reliable evidence, I'm not going to allow this to proceed to jury. Case dismissed. Court is adjourned."

House did not allow himself a sigh of relief but he felt the tension drain out of his shoulders and jaw. Tritter looked angry enough to spit fire and that wasn't half bad either. And then Wilson was smiling warmly at him, and that was better yet.

"Dr. Wilson."

Both men froze at the sound of that hated voice. House recovered first, half-stepping between Wilson and Tritter. "So should we be looking for you in the shadows? Flinch every time a car backfires?"

Tritter ignored him, fixing his gaze on Wilson. "Congratulations, Dr. Wilson, you pulled it off. I hope I was wrong about House . . . for your sake."


	7. Epilogue

"That went better than I expected," Wilson admitted as he and House traversed Princeton-Plainsboro's parking lot.

House snorted. "You should have held out eight weeks of medical leave. Cuddy would've given it to you."

"Six weeks is plenty."

"Plenty for you, maybe, but not for the temps scouring your paperwork for lapses in judgment. C'mon, doc, have a heart."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "You don't care about the temps. You only care that you'll have a live-in cook and maid for six weeks instead of two or three months."

"So hire someone," retorted House, opening the driver's door of his car. "Get that Julia person back. You can afford it with that deal the hotel offered."

"They only offered it to keep me from suing," Wilson mumbled but he smiled to himself as he got in. It _was_ a heck of a deal – full reimbursement retroactively back to October 29, with an offer of free habitation for another 30 days available as soon as the sink and all its pipes and parts could be replaced. Until then, House's couch was home. Again. Which reminded him . . .

"How about some ground rules this time? You lay off the nightly warm water hand baths and I refrain from killing another of your canes?"

"Throw in a few more batches of those macadamia nut pancakes and I think our negotiations have a chance. No promises, though." House started the car and flipped on the radio. An ear-ruptured base line poured forth. Wilson immediately turned it to another station. House immediately turned it back.

"My car, my music," he scolded.

"Fine." Wilson dug his ipod out of his coat pocket and inserted the ear buds.

House turned the radio off entirely. "Solved the mystery of the missing ipod?"

"Umm, yeah." Wilson concentrated on finding a good song. "In my pocket the whole time, I guess."

He could almost feel those blue eyes boring holes into his head. "Maybe it's a good thing your patients' notes are getting scrubbed. You said it was in your gym bag; you even had Chase and Foreman hunting for it."

"So I was wrong!" Wilson exclaimed. "Big deal. I've misplaced it before and without the excuse of heavy metal poisoning."

"Yeah," House said but it was clear from his expression there was a lot more going on in his head than was coming out of his mouth. He turned the radio back on, but turned the volume down a bit, and during the whole ride home he kept sneaking glances at his passenger.

* * *

"Good Luck Hut or Mandarin Gardens?" House asked, flopping on the couch. That he was even offering a choice was his attempt at being a gracious host.

Wilson made a face anyway as he curled up in other corner of the couch. "Does it have to be Chinese?"

"Unless you feel up to cooking, yes. I'm getting my spring roll tonight one way or another."

It took a heroic effort not to make a crass comment but somehow Wilson managed. "All right. Mandarin Gardens. Their soup isn't ninety percent grease and they deliver tea."

"Tea?" True to form, House managed to infuse the one word with a universe of disdain.

"Yes, tea. Preferably ginger tea." Wilson rested his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes. Actually, at this point, not even the tea sounded tempting.

"You do know the effectiveness of ginger tea to alleviate nausea is about fifty-fifty, right?"

"Better than nothing."

Even with his eyes closed he could tell House was staring at him. He didn't bother looking, however, until he heard the gentle creak of the couch as House stood up and limped his way into the kitchen. "What are you doing?"

House waved a beer at him like a pom-pom. "I'm thirsty too. Put in the order."

Wilson fumbled for the menu and his cell. From the kitchen came the sounds of water running at full force into a kettle. Then, suddenly , the water cut off and there was what he would have recognized as an ominous silence if he hadn't been struggling to make the rep understand him.

"Thirty minutes!" he called to the building silence behind him.

House limped back to the couch. Wilson had seen him frustrated, bored, annoyed, angry, hurt, and saddened. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen House genuinely enraged.

"You _IDIOT_!" House bellowed. The hand gripping his cane had white knuckles.

"Wha – "

"Moron. Imbecile. Half-wit." He mouthed a few more silent syllables before returning to his stand-by of, "_Idiot_!" House drew a deep breath, apparently trying to calm down. The best he achieved was an icy, looming presence. "You poisoned yourself to get out of testifying."

"Wha – no! No, it was the sink – "

"You used the clog in the sink as a shield," House snarled. "It was a perfect excuse. You had a few weeks to come up with a viable reason to get out testifying. It had to be medical because nothing else would be acceptable. It had to have dramatic symptoms. And it had to look natural because otherwise Tritter would have seen right through it. He did anyway, but he can't prove it."

"The sink – " Wilson tried again.

House cut him off viciously. "Maybe there really was a clog. Maybe the pipes really were old and rusty, and maybe the hotel's water supply really does have naturally occurring arsenic. Maybe the roto-rooter really did stir up some arsenic-infused rust, but who cares? It wouldn't have affected you an iota, because the water that goes down the sink doesn't come back up when you turn on the faucet. Otherwise we'd all be in a lot of trouble."

House sighed and went on, flatly, "If the hotel water supply had been contaminated, there would have been arsenic coming out of the tub as well as the sink but only the sink sample was positive. The only way you could get arsenic-infused water from just the sink was if the pipes carrying water to the faucet had been compromised, and they wouldn't have been touched by the roto-rooter."

"Where would I get the arsenic?" Wilson tried to use a normal voice but his mouth and throat had gone dry.

"You're an oncologist. Trisenox is used to treat acute promyelocytic leukemia that doesn't respond to traditional chemo. Trisenox is just arsenic trioxide dissolved in water. All you had to do was prescribe it for a dying patient and then take it home and distill the water out of it. The hotel sink uses those compression handles with the screws. You do biopsies on glioblastomas; you have the mechanical know-how to figure out a schematic from Home Depot. Remove the handles, insert the distillation into the siphon and voila! Home brew on tap whenever you want it."

"Except Trisenox uses hydrochloric acid to adjust the pH of the solution," he continued. "Remove the water and you get a lot more bang for your buck. It ulcerates your entire GI tract but what the hell, right? Bloody emesis with seizures is so much more impressive than plain old seizures. Plus it counteracts the tachycardia the arsenic caused so your BP looked normal. Throws us off the scent."

He was frightened, Wilson realized, and his gut tightened for a reason that had nothing to do with chellation side effects. "House – "

"And that damn ipod. You knew where it was the whole time; you just wanted them to bring you the gym bag because you needed your water bottle with its Vitamin Poison, but you couldn't ask for the bag or the bottle outright because that would be too suspicious. And you charmed Ben the Brainless to make him feel sorry for you, make him your ally against Tritter. It was a long shot to keep the water bottle but it worked. It worked," House repeated softly. He dropped into a chair, looking so defeated Wilson couldn't speak.

"What I don't understand is the Welbutrin," House said finally. "As far as red herrings go, it seems unnecessary. We were useless enough as it was without confusing matters more."

"The Welbutrin was real," Wilson choked out. "I really am taking it. For depression."

House looked at him sharply but his voice was gentle. For House, anyway. "Why'd you wait until a couple days before the hearing? Your therapist said you'd been declining meds until then."

Wilson curled into a tighter ball and took a quavery breath. "Because I realized I needed it. With the divorce, and my job, and you, and then Tritter . . . I was being careful about how much of the water I drank a day, keeping it below lethal levels . . . but that day . . . I thought about how tempting it would be to just . . . drink more of it. Glass after glass after glass. And that scared me."

"But the fact that you were deliberately poisoning yourself didn't," snapped House, angry again. "You were willing to practically kill yourself, jeopardize your career, just to keep your friend from going to prison for a crime he actually committed. It wasn't worth it, Wilson! I . . . I'm not . . . worth – "

"It was worth it," Wilson interrupted quietly, understanding what House was trying to say.

"No, it wasn't! I deserve to go to prison! You don't deserve this kind of punishment."

"I sold you out. I had to fix my mistake."

"Jesus, Wilson," House nearly moaned. "If you weren't Jewish I'd get you beatified tomorrow. And canonized the day after that."

"That's a lot of religious talk for an atheist," Wilson countered. He added a faint smile that didn't feel like a smile so much as an uncomfortable twist of his mouth.

"Water's boiling," House said abruptly, standing up. Wilson listened to the sounds of faint whistling cease, to the glug-glug of the kettle emptying, to the electronic beep as House set a timer for the steeping. Three minutes later the timer beeped steadily until House whacked it – across the counter, by the sound of it – and the diagnostician returned with the steaming mug billowing out waves of ginger-scented heat.

"No sugar, not with the kind of inflammation I saw your scopes."

Wilson accepted the mug and wondered if he should be embarrassed by how much House now knew about his insides. He decided it wasn't worth the effort.

"Nothing I can say will convince you it wasn't worth it." House was not asking a question.

Wilson shook his head anyway. "No."

House nodded absently, his eyes somewhat out of focus. The sounds of his brain whirring away was nearly audible. Wilson was about to speak when the doorbell rang and he set aside his tea to accept their order.

They ate in silence. House had Tivo'ed Biography's Murderers Row week. They had both watched it before but it still made for satisfactory dinner soundtrack. Afterwards, Wilson dumped the empty cartons into the trash and stored the rest in the fridge. House hadn't moved from his chair. Wilson could sprawl across the couch if he so chose but he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"Think you'll be ok on your own for a few days? No more little additives to the drinking hole?"

Wilson blinked. "Umm, yeah." He bit his lip hard for a second , gathering up courage. "So. Am I moving out right now or should I wait until morning to get kicked out?"

"Neither." House sauntered, as much as a man with a ruined thigh could saunter, towards his bedroom. That sort of casualness could only mean there was a plan a-brewing. "I'm leaving tomorrow."

There was a tension headache building between his eyes again, as it did so often when House was around him. "Look, it's your apartment. It makes more sense if I leave."

"You're not the one checking into rehab tomorrow. That's a nifty impression of a goldfish, by the way. You ever thought of doing children's parties?"

Wilson shut his jaw. "You're going to rehab?" he repeated. "Seriously?"

"Serious as a gangrene," House agreed cheerily.

Now it was Wilson's turn to stare with narrowed eyes. Granted, his laser look was nowhere near House's caliber but he flattered himself that he was at least somewhat intimidating. "Why?"

The older man found a particular point on the floor supremely interesting. "Because if I can't say anything to you that will you realize what you did wasn't worth it, I have to do something that actually makes it worth it," he admitted quietly if gruffly.

"Why bother? It won't change you. You don't believe people are capable of change," Wilson pointed out. "They just adopt different behaviors temporarily for their own benefit."

"Different behaviors that temporarily benefit them. Geez, if you're going to quote me at least get it right."

"Why?" Wilson repeated softly, ignoring the attempt at deflection.

House finally met his gaze. "I can't change. But maybe . . . maybe I can change one behavior. Just one. Tweak it, alter it . . . for a little while anyway." He shrugged. "It's a start, right?"

Wilson swallowed hard and nodded. "Yeah."

"Good night, Wilson."

"Good night, House."


End file.
